The moral status of the human embryo: a tradition recalled.

Abstract

An Anglican theologian contends that the claim to absolute protection for the human embryo from the moment of conception is a recent one in the Roman Catholic moral tradition. Citing pre-classical, classical, biblical, and post-biblical Roman Catholic sources, Dunstan argues that these traditions attempted to grade the protection provided to the nascent human being according to the stages of its development.This paper argues that the claim to absolute protection for the human embryo "from the beginning" is a novelty, created in the late 19th century by the Catholic Church. Western, Christian, And Roman Catholic tradition, expressed in terms of embryology, speculation on the sould and the time of its entering or animating the body, and moral and legal sanctions for abortion, can be traced to the civilizations of the Levant, out of which some Old Testament laws were shaped. The ancient Hittites based penalties for assault on pregnant women on the gestational age of the fetus, and similar distinctions were made in later cultures. The Hippocratic corpus related philosophical specualtion to observations on fetal growth, and Aristotle held that penalties for destruction of nascent human life should be graded on the basis of developmental stage. The Celtic Penetentials, the Old Irish Canons, and Pope Innocent III also prescribed different punishments for provoking abortion depending on the state of fetal development. The canon law and English common law were in agreement, and quickening became a determining point for various purposes in common law. Standard medieval teaching held that there were 3 stages of ensoulment, the process being completed with the full form of the body at about 40 days. Pope Sixtus V in 1588 attempted to erase the distinction in the eyes of the church, but the next pope, Pius IX, modified the new ruling. By the mid-19th century, however, advances in medicine were making abortion by direct assault on the fetus possible and safer, causing the incidence of abortion to rise. The increase was viewed as a threat calling for drastic remedy. Pius IX therefore declared excommunicate all who procured abortion without distinction to method or gestational age. The change in doctrine effectively ended the tradition which attempted to grade the protection given to the fetus according to its stage of development.